Some lovers try positions that they can’t handle – I’m referring to the bones of the wrist, of course. The phrase is a classic mnemonic used to remember the eight carpal (wrist) bones – scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate and hamate – whose initials form the memorable sentence.

One of the most curious features of anatomy education is that people often remember mnemonics for decades, long after the rest of their anatomical knowledge has faded. And it’s often the filthiest ones that work best.

These short phrases, rhymes or sentences – used to remember ordered lists of nerves, bones or arteries – have been a staple of anatomy teaching for generations. Some are harmlessly quirky. Others are decidedly less polite. What they share is an unusual staying power.

That persistence is not just a quirk of medical culture. It reveals something important about how learning works.

Anatomy requires understanding and applying the structure of the body. But it begins with something far less glamorous: learning a vast and specialised technical vocabulary. The online database Terminologia Anatomica lists around 7,500 standardised anatomical terms, a figure broadly similar to estimates of the active vocabulary used by fluent speakers in everyday language (often cited at 5,000-10,000 words).

Mnemonics emerged as a practical response to this challenge, helping students organise and retrieve........

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